Merck Animal Health has been hit with a class action lawsuit by consumers who claim that their dog and cat drug Bravecto contains a pesticide that is harmful to pets.
Bravecto tablets and topical medications are used on both cats and dogs, and are marketed as a way to prevent ticks and fleas for up to three months.
Plaintiff Valerie Palmieri says she paid just under $50 for one Bravecto chewable tablet to treat her 78 pound German Shepherd Jake for fleas and ticks.
After taking the pill, Jake started to vomit, did not eat, and began to show symptoms of lethargy, according to the Bravecto class action lawsuit. The plaintiff reportedly took Jake to the emergency animal clinic after the dog was no longer able to walk.
Palmieri claims that she contacted Merck to talk about Jake’s possible adverse reaction to taking the drug. The company allegedly denied that that Jake’s sickness was caused by Bravecto but offered to pay for the emergency room visit.
However, the company would only pay if she signed an agreement which would release any claims against the company, according to the Bravecto class action lawsuit.
The plaintiff states that she refused to release her claims as she wasn’t sure if Jake’s symptoms would be long-term and was still not sure if her dog’s symptoms were caused by the drug.
After more tests and a trip to a neurologist, the plaintiff’s veterinarian allegedly told her that he “presumed” that Jake’s diagnosis of meningitis was a result of “Bravecto toxicity,” which was contrary to what she was told by the defendant.
Since he ingested the drug, Jake has continued to have neurological episodes, according to the Bravecto class action lawsuit. In September of this year, he reportedly fell down a flight of stairs and broke his leg. The plaintiff claims that she has spent “tens of thousands of dollars” treating Jake after he ingested Bravecto.
Palmieri says that when she purchased the tablet, the packaging and materials enclosed therein did not state that neurological adverse reactions were possible when taking the pill. In addition, the defendant allegedly did not tell veterinarians about the possible safety issues that the drug posed to pets.
“Because Defendant failed to disclose the risks of Bravecto to consumers and misrepresented the safety of Bravecto, consumers would be reasonable in purchasing Bravecto to treat their pets in a safe manner,” the class action lawsuit notes.
The Bravecto class action lawsuit also states that in September 2018, the FDA issued an alert about the possible neurological events that are associated with medicines like Bravecto to treat fleas and ticks.
The FDA has subsequently asked manufacturers to change their labels to “highlight neurological events because these events were seen consistently across the isoxazoline class of products” and “to provide veterinarians and pet owners with the information they need to make treatment decisions for each pet on an individual basis,” according to the Bravecto class action lawsuit.
The plaintiff states that the defendant now discloses that there may be some neurological reactions to taking Bravecto, including tremors, ataxia, and seizures.
“Every consumer who purchased Bravecto without being informed of the true facts about its health and safety risks prior to purchase was injured at the point of sale when, instead of obtaining a safe flea and tick medication, they obtained Defendant’s unreasonably dangerous and defective product,” the Bravecto class action lawsuit states.
Did you purchase Bravecto for your pet? Leave a message in the comments section below.
The plaintiff is represented by Mark A. Dicello, Adam J. Levitt, and Amy E. Keller of DiCello Levitt and Gutzler LLC and Jessica J. Sleater and Ralph N. Sianni of Andersen Sleater Sianni LLC.
The Bravecto Class Action Lawsuit is Valerie Palmieri v. Intervet Inc., et. al, Case No. 2:19-cv-22024, in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.
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1,807 thoughts onBravecto Class Action Says Meds Aren’t Safe For Pets
This sickens me beyond words. How can vets continue prescribing Bravecto without knowing this information, I dont believe it possible. My family has taken all our pets to an extremely well etablihed & respected veterinary that has deep roots in the community. We have taken all our pets there ince 1970. In 2005 i got my 11 week old Shih Tzu and when he was old enough my Vet recommended Bravecto. id never heard of it & asked him alot of questions about it. The first year and a half my Shih Tzu seemed fineeh but the second year he would go a day and not eat, then eat and throw up. and this happened randomly and seemingly for no apparent reason. The Vet said that Shih Tzu’s are finicky eaters.and a food they have loved. one day they will turn their nose up to it; he said the usual: if lathargic, not drinking, looses weght etc to bring him in.. Well it seemed to taper off and he never had severe symptoms so i thought we were out of the woods. the following year, he had those days again of throwing uo and not eating, and i gor a wet food from the vet and he loved it and again things improved. About 6 months after that the seizures started. Those were the toughet days of my life. The Vet could not get to the bottom of it and I did not know how to help him. my pets have always been given the best of everything: food, suplements, brushes, shampoo and on and on. He had everal seizures but they were months apart.. I never even considered the Bravecto. But I had known abut the drops that were causing deaths and seizures. And I remember thinking how grateful i was to have dodged that bullet.. I read the details of medications on their pamphlets; to be aware of interaction or side effects. We trust those damn pamphlets, like why do they bother if they arent telling the whole story, it makes me so mad to wonder how long they had known about this. We adore our pets and would give them the world if we could. So we do the absolute next best thing; the one thing we CAN do. To provide them teverything we know that will provide a healthy long life: quality insurance, care, nutrition, and do all we can to provide shelter, love exercise.. Only to dicovery that we have been lied to by those we have put our faith in to do what we cant do. and that is the most important factor of all. But realisticly dont I fell like an idiot. My god if big pharma doesnt give 2 you know whats about people, how the hell have we put our trust in them to care for our pets. I cant really blame the Vets, i guess. This has really came to me as a shock. And long story short, my beloved soul mate incredibly gorgeous and brilliant Matisse had many seizures and then a stroke and lost his eye sight. Im so heart broken and there more to this story but I cant write about it. I feel for everyone who has lost their baby from this or any other non natural way. We are connected and we are special people. And my little 3 yr old Arya Violet, fm Shih Tzu will never take that again. Her dose was due this month. My lord i pray he does not how signs of health issues from it or there will be problems for that company. The lawsuit is probably over, but we have got to get this crap out of consumers reach.
My beautiful grey poodle called Sima started taking seizures after 1 dose of bravecto prescribed by the vet. I was not told of any link to neurological issues or seizures. She took a massive seizure and I rushed her to the out of hrs emergency vets. I had no faith in them and all they cared about was me paying them. They passed the care onto the normal vets on Monday morning and I never saw my dog again. I had just given birth and the vet told me that there had been too much brain damage to save the dog. It cost me over £2,000 but I would have paid 10 times that to save my dog. Shame on the companies producing these supposed medicines despite ALL the evidence, nothing can bring back my Sima and nothing will ever erase the trauma I went through with her. I hope they get sued billions and I hope no-one ever gives their animal vet prescribed medication without doing their own research. I trusted my vet, now I don’t.
My daughter’s dog developed a seizure disorder after receiving Bravecto. She had to start him on seizure medication. He had multiple seizures and went into a coma and died yesterday. She adored that dog and he was only 10yrs old. I want to know why the FDA is still allowing Bravecto and any other flea medication with Fluralaner in it to be sold when they are aware that it is causing neurological damage, ataxia, seizures and death in animals.
I gave my cat Daisy this and now she has a lump where I put the Bravecto on her neck!!!! Wth
My labradoodle was switched to Bravecto in January 2020 at the age of 2 and started having grand mal seizures in October 2021. She’s had three as of December. We’ve taken her off Bravecto and have not yet placed her on any other flea and tick meds.
Hi I live in Australia I have 7 dogs 4 of them dogs have been left with seizures after having bravecto is there any class action in Australia?
We gave our two year old collie (MDR1) bravecto. Within two days she had a seizure, and within three days she had died. The vet says she was poisoned, her blood test showed extremely high liver ALT and AST levels, but they couldn’t definitively say what the cause was. There’s nothing else poisonous that she could have gotten into. We don’t use rat poison, she hadn’t left our property in the time she got sick, no antifreeze or mushrooms around that she could have eaten. There’s no explanation other than the bravecto. We are devastated and don’t know what to do.
My happy loving kitty is now a cat I don’t recognize. I gave him Bravecto on January 23, 2022. Over the week he became lethargic and stopped eating. I took him to the veterinarian that prescribed him the flea medication. They have run tests to figure out what is going on. Today his breathing is shallow and he’s making noises. I want my cat back but I’m afraid I am going to have to put him down. He seems stressed and very uncomfortable. He no longer eats food or drinks water. He now goes and hides in the closet. I bought Tomlyn high calorie nutritional gel to try and get some nutrients into him. I also give him an appetite stimulant that the vet prescribed. My heart is broken. ? Why is this still on the market? ???
The very exact same thing happened to my kitty within 10 hours of bravecto topical. I did have to put him down. The vet also said he thought it might be lung cancer. Smokey Joe started vomiting and having issues at both ends within 2 hours could not walk with tremors and could hardly breathe he was gasping for air. his blood work was off the charts,liver and among other things. Years ago I had another cat I went through the same thing with a topical flea and tick treatment. I have had no previous problems with Frontline or revolution which I will stick to now if needed.
He died today. I am completely devastated and heartbroken ??
In 2012 I took on a group of *unadoptable* dogs from a local rescue shelter that was closing and over the years they became family. This year I lost my two healthy 10-year old Pitties to horrible cancers. These two hiking partners were the only dogs of 5 given Bravecto each year during the warmer seasons.
The 3 dogs never given taking these chemicals are still relatively healthy at ages 14, 14 and 10.
The fact of these products being so expensive saved the others from a similarly sad fate. Ever since Bravecto came on the market in 2014 my veterinarian was zealous in pushing the product for all of my dogs. I felt guilty about having to ration it, but it would be an extra $250 expense per month if I used it on all.
So, I stayed with Natrapel topical treatment for the others and pulled ticks off as soon as I saw them and since I live in New England surrounded by plenty of ticks. This is basically how my family dogs were treated when I was a kid, along with weekly flea baths, and they all lived a healthy 16 years.
With exuberant promotion from my vet, I felt confident using Bravecto on the two dogs I took hiking every summer. This year they both died within 3 months of one another from horrible forms of cancer, and both suffered neurological problems prior. One had a brain tumor that progressed to his nasal passages. The other started developing twitching in the hind legs several years ago and developed a form of lymphoma that took his life. I believe my beloved hiking partners were guinea pigs for the long-term effects of dodgy chemicals.
I feel horribly guilty about not fully researching these drugs before using them. I trusted my vet. And most vets urge their clients to use these products. After a brief online search, I located only one vet in Minnesota who does NOT advise his clients to use Bravecto and similar products for the simple reason that they do not repel insects. Repelling insects is the only effective way of preventing disease.
I always found dead, dessicated ticks still locked on to my dogs while using Bravecto. I started to wonder if ticks were able to transmit disease vectors while dead. It takes several hours for the products to kill the ticks, but the Powhassen virus can be transmitted in 3-minutes. It can take from several to 48 hours for other vectors to transmit but if the tick is dead and still locked onto the dog, I’m assuming bacteria and viruses can still be transmitted.
Therefore, Bravecto is useless for pets and simply promoted and used for the convenience of the human owners.
Repeat. This dangerous product does not repel insects. It is dangerous yet does nothing to prevent disease. It is simply a heavily marketed panacea for pet owners
This is infuriating, and I regret ever giving my dogs a long-acting internal pesticide. And, if this drug was not terribly dangerous to ingest, wouldn’t drug companies be promoting similar medications for humans, especially with tick borne diseases a growing threat? They aren’t because they are lethal and don’t really work to prevent disease. They are a huge money maker for chemical companies though, and being a fairly conscientious pet caregiver, I feel duped, guilty, and devastated at losing my best friends to painful, horrible diseases. From now on, I’ll be treating my dogs with natural repellents, frequent baths, and tick checks like I did as a kid, like one honest veterinarian in Minnesota recommends.
Friday, Jan 28, 2022 I took my beautiful healthy cat to the vet to get checked for a skin issue. The vet indicated that there was flea dirt on him but I cannot confirm he had fleas. He was given 1) rabies vaccine 2) a steroid and 3) bravecto 3 month topical treatment. Once I got home I realized he was breathing really heavy. Called the vet and took him back. She blew it off that he was “stressed” and sent us home. Several hours later I realized he was in severe distress and called the hospital. They said to bring him in. He never made it to the hospital as he died in the car. It devastated my son and I. He was my boy and a very special cat. He was going to be only 5 years old. I have since read that you shouldn’t give vaccines and flea treatments at the same time, also that the steroid could cause panting, but reading up on Bravecto I am sure that it played a part in this also. The pharmaceutical company should be required to pass this information to the vets since they are administering this drug. Something he was given or a combination of drugs killed my cat that night and I am still devastated to lose my beloved Toeby.
my cat was administered a rabies vaccine in addition to bravecto. she was euthanized yesterday, one month later. she was a young cat, and developed diabetes one month later. we are overcome with grief.